Top Ten Survival modes

10  Left 4 Dead 2 Survival Mode
Left 4 Dead and its sequel both had survival modes that ,while fun, were usually very short.
They tended to get repetitive and boring fairly quickly.
Thankfully the PC community has created mods that liven things up.

9 Battlefield Bad Company 2 Onslaught mode
Bad Company 2's Onslaught mode was Brutally Difficult.
Onslaught mode was not a mode you could just jump into and god forbid you play with randoms.
With the right team though it was incredibly fun.

8 I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES 1N IT!!!1 
This is the only single player only entry in this.
Its arguably the best Indie title on the Xbox 360.
Its also the only twin stick shooter.
I almost skipped it over because it doesn't technically have a story.  

7  Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 Terrorist Hunt
Vegas 2's Terrorist Hunt mode can invoke more fear then most modern horror games.
The AI were ridiculous they could hear an ant fart across the city.
They also never missed so if they snuck up on you it was over.

6 Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer
Mass Effect 3's multiplayer was really deep.
There were many classes, weapons, color schemes, ect. to unlock.
The unlock system was random so it quickly became addicting to try and get the best stuff .
Unfortunately the developers killed the game by listening to the communities ridiculous demands.

5 Gears of war 3 Horde
Gears 2's horde mode is often credited for inspiring most modern survival modes.
Gears 3 vastly improved horde mode by adding bosses and build-able fortifications.
 Improved AI and increased weapon count added more variety to the mode.

4 Call of Duty (Ghosts) Extinction
Extinction is the surprise hit game mode, most(me included) thought it was a gimmick to copy Treyarch
We quickly learned its depth and interesting gameplay mechanics separated it from zombies.
Extinction is the only good part of CoD Ghosts in my eyes.

3 Resident Evil Mercenaries
I know I just went into this yesterday but to reiterate.
Mercenaries is a mode where you have to defeat as many enemies as possible within the time limit.
Its always fun and usually my main reason for buying the games tbh.

2 Call of Duty (Treyarch) Zombies
Zombies mode was an instant success for Treyarch
Since being introduced in WaW as a test the mode has done nothing but improve
Zombies mode is a fantastic way to procrastinate.

1. Halo 3: ODST Firefight
Ever since I played Halo I wanted a survival mode .
Halo ODST finally delivered it and it did a damn good job.
Halo Reach failed to replicate the experience by making it far to easy and not giving it proper servers.

Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D

Released: June 28, 2011 Platforms: 3DS

Story: Nope

Gameplay: The Game is a port/combination/upgrade of The mercenaries modes of both Resident Evil 4 and 5(It was released before RE 6). The Mercenaries is a wave survival game mode where the player faces many enemies and bosses from the two games for as long as they can. The game is timed and time is extended by breaking time beacons on the map. The Games last until time runs out, the player dies, or 150 enemies are defeated.

There are 3 different enemy types from the previous games. From weakest to strongest they are Civilian Majini(RE5), Military Majini(RE5), Los Iluminados(RE4). The Boss types are The Executioner (Black and Red), The Chainsaw Majini, and Garrador(Think big blind wolverine zombie).

Graphics: Really not bad for a 3DS game of course they don't hold up to resident Evil 5's original graphics but it could have been much worse

What they did well:

Gameplay: The Game handles much differently than the console version it derives from. The best way to describe it is more fluent. You can move while aiming and recovering from taking a shot is much faster.

Skills: The Skill system introduced in Mercenaries 3D adds some well needed variety into the game. It also is really cool to be able to plan classes on a character to character basis. They also give you more incentive to play to level the skills up to higher level. Level 3 skills gain and extra ability.

Map Changes: The maps were all selected from RE 4/5 and for the most part I think they did a good job in picking maps out of the games. The Maps however were cut down in size and This is actually a good thing. Some of the maps in there original form were far to large and caused issues in spawning and made getting around annoying. The Mercenaries 3D versions are clear and concise and rarely allow for and spawn issues.

Item Drops: Items drop at a much higher frequency and in a more random way then in RE 5. The preset classes means you cant just drop a weapon to stop ammo spawning for it.

What could have been better:

Characters: All of the characters are cool and serve their purpose but considering how many playable characters there were in Re 4/5 you'd think more of them would be included in a game dedicated to the game mode. With the missing characters there were also many missing outfits/weapons which is a pretty big disappointment
.
New Content: RE 4/5 Mercenaries were great and combining them was a great idea but, there wasn't anything new at all , no new character or map. It seems fairly lazy to just port old content to a handheld with no major additions.

Overall : 7.5

Console wars and what can be learned

Its not a secret that people have strong opinions and preferences in nearly all aspects of life from major topics like Politics and religion, to minuscule and trivial topics like what foods or colors they like. Of course the topic i'm going to be writing about is one of those less important preferences, what consoles people prefer.

Just writing about the console war and peoples, or my own preferences would be boring. Why I'm writing is what I think The consoles could do to learn from one another.

What PS4 and Wii-U can learn from Xbox One

Controller: The Xbox Ones controller looked weird when it was announced but the controller is the fitting evolution for the 360 controller. The 360 Controller was the go to controller for many PC players as well as most games ported from console were ported from the 360. The Xbox one controller is the better version of that controller, its joysticks have the indentation that the late 360 controllers have its triggers are more natural to hand placement and the design has a much better grip. The Playstation's controller design could use an update and the Wii-U really needs a more traditional controller.

Achievements(Wii-U): The Achievement system the Xbox 360 had at launch has been slightly improved by the Xbox one. It would later be adapted by PS3/PS4 re-dubbed as Trophies. The Wii-U is the only console still left out of the loop.

Online infrastructure / Gui: Xbox live has always been far ahead in features and navigation. Party chat, Skype, friends list, and the various other on console features many would be later emulated by the PS4. The Wii-U has started to get up to date but is still a ways off

What Xbox One and Wii-U can learn from PS4

PS Plus Games: Xbox has games with gold but that normally is two games a month. Whats more is that the two games are generally pretty old by the time they're made free. PS Plus is usually a decent number of games usually at least 5+ and generally they're still fairly new or at least popular games.

Gamecentric(Xbox One): The Xbox One's announcement was a disaster to be honest. Microsoft completely misread its audience. Even now despite changing massively it still seems like the focus isn't entirely games.

Developer friendly: The Xbox gets a lot of support but many smaller developers avoid it. The Xbox also failed in Japan last generation, so many Japanese developers didn't port their games to it. The Wii-U has done everything in its power to scare away 3rd party developers. When it is acknowledged it usually gets the watered down treatment.

What Xbox One and PS4 can learn from Wii-U

Split-screen: For many the age of split screen is over. However it kinda sucks that there aren't many split screen games out there for PS4 and Xbox One. Nintendo still does a fantastic job giving people in the same room games to play

Remote play aspect: The PS4 is trying to do something similar with the vita. Xbox has some potential with Smartglass. However both require a separate purchase the, Wii-U comes with the capability.

The Homebrew aspect: When people think modding, they'd normally think PC. Its generally frowned upon on console, and for good reason. Though the positive aspects of it lead to incredible feats by the community as seen with things like Super Smash Bros. Brawl Project M.

Titanfall

Released: March 11 ,2014  Platforms: Xbox One, 360, PC.

Story: Sometime in the future Humanity has discovered a rash of habitable planets and has promptly colonized them. However all is not well and due to mistreatment and poverty a rebellion has been started by the Militia against the controlling faction the IMC.

Gameplay: Titanfall has taken a really unique approach to the standard FPS. Taking cues from mobas and games like Mirrors edge in regards to parkour. The Verticality is a major game changer. The bots help skilled players gain access to Titans faster and help less skilled players contribute to the team despite not necessarily being good at FPS'.

Of course that's just describing the games ground gameplay. As the game progresses players gain the ability to call in there Titans. Titans are large and deal massive damage but they aren't over powered as even players on the ground have anti-Titan weapons that can deal massive damage if used right. There are three types of Titan, The Stryder-Small,Fast(My personal favorite) The Atlas-Medium,Damaging and The Ogre- Large Defensive. The three types of titan are all balanced against one another the small Stryders speed may trump even the large Ogres high defense.

The weapon balance was pretty well done too. With the exception of a few weapons I never felt at a disadvantage. Although I will admit I don't have much of a reason to use many of the guns as my favorite weapon in the game is the starting Assault Rifle.

Graphics: The game is very visually appealing. One of the first games to truly look next gen.

What they did well:

Movement: Moving around in Titanfall is fun in and of itself all the Parkour mechanics and jump packs really lend itself to setting a fantastic pace for the game.

Balance: Even though there are a few guns that are essentially better versions of the starting guns it never puts anyone using the earlier guns at much of a disadvantage. Someone using the starting SMG can easily out play someone with the later one.

Scoring: How the scoring works allows even the worst players feel like there helping there team and thats true to a certain extent. There's other modes for more hardcore gamers who don't like this feature.

What could have been better:

Regenerating: This is essentially like CoD's Prestiging. except how it works in Titanfall is you need to complete a certain set of challenges to Regenerate. These challenges may make you use guns or do certain things you may not else wise do. Its good in some regards but if it makes you use a gun the doesn't fit your playstyle these challenges can become tedious.

Campaign: Titanfall does have a campaign but its lost in the chaos of a multiplayer match setting. The narrative is far too loose which is a shame because the Universe presented in Titanfall seems like it could be incredibly interesting with more back story and context as opposed to being thrown into the midst of the fight.

Overall : 9/10